I have tried to raise these issues in private, I have tried to be politically correct, but I am done dancing around the issues. Antagonistic? No. Angry? Yes.

Despite what Hairball183 thinks, this is not flaming. You have seen only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, buddy. The bucket has been filling, drop by drop, over the past weeks, and now it's spilling over. The issue is neither resolved by shutting people up, nor by putting on pink goggles and pretending everything is fuzzy and cuddly because Carlos says things are "sound".

The voting system is a charade. It is not only not conforming to the rules, but it is also buggy and incoherent, thus preventing even the most well intentioned people from voting correctly. This is apart from the cosmetic issues, security issues, and the lack of press coverage (which may turn out to be a good thing, after all).

Something has to change. If the contest is not going to abide by the self-imposed rules, at least have the courtesy to take them down or change them. Change the rules, or change the voting, but please don't continue to ignore the problems, hoping they go away. The situation isn't improving by itself.

The way things are progressing, the sourcecode and postmortems of this contest are fated to take the same route as in the past uDGs, to disappear in some abyss at the end of the contest. Despite my best efforts, and those of my fellow contestants and volunteers, the contest is in danger of falling far short of its potential.

Everyone, please help end this downward spiral of ingnorance and incompetence.

DoG Wrote:Despite what Hairball183 thinks, this is not flaming. You have seen only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, buddy.

DoG, your post in that other thread was clearly inflammatory. Perhaps you should calm down a bit and read your own compositions. Using cuss words (as you did in that other thread) and threatening folks that they've "only seen the tip of the iceberg" and "buddy" are less than polite.

Moderators are not "shutting you up", we are making every effort to maintain calm and civility, while folks such as yourself seem to be a little caught up in the heat of the contest. You've made your statement here, and I believe it is relevant, but because of the rather harsh tone you've presented it with, further discussion will be disallowed.

*** Any further posts with harsh rhetoric will be deleted on sight. ***

Okay, after some moderator discussion, I've decided to reopen this thread. Has a thread reopening ever happened before at iDG?

Why? Because it is important to have discussion about this. I know developers have put in an enormous amount effort into their games and are understandably very frustrated with a few things about the contest.

So here's the deal: We'll go ahead and allow discussion about this, but the thread will be HEAVILY MODERATED.

***** DO NOT USE HARSH TONE *****

If your post is deleted, don't feel bad, just try to rewrite it in a nicer tone and it will be allowed to stand. Please refrain from using any cuss words or pointing fingers at others. We will not allow any inflammatory comments.

Remember, this thread has been reopened to give members a place to voice their feelings about the voting system, in a fair and civil manner. If you can't be nice, don't post.

Apologies for the length, in an effort to convert harsh tones into reasoned thoughts, the wordcount lengthened itself dramatically.

Okay, firstly I feel I should apologise for my conduct in my (now-deleted) response to the other thread. My mood was heavily influenced by other factors at the time.

Sorry especially to Bill, who always seems to have a way of getting me over-excited! ;-) While I regret the tone in which I voiced them, I do still firmly maintain my opinion that your comments towards Seth were unfounded, demeaning and unnecessary.

Secondly, AnotherJake, when DoG refers to the tip of the iceberg, I am sure he is not meaning flaming or any other antagonistic actions, but rather the tip of the percieved incompetence and other factors that finally led the pot to boil over last night as it did, so I'm sure his words cannot be considered threatening.

And thirdly, onto my views of this topic in general, in the most pretentious way possible, an open letter:

When making the decision to enter this contest, I - like many others - had no plans or expectations of winning prizes. I entered uDevGames because I genuinely enjoy programming, had in recent times been very lacking in motivation, and knew that a deadline and a sense of community would give me the boost I needed to get back into it. While my entry may not feel as finished or polished as other finalists, I am proud of the progress I made, and I am happy with the result.

I say all this to try and show that this is not a case of being upset or angry because I feel that prizes could be snatched away from me unfairly.

However, in spite of that truth, the argument, "Oh well, everyone had some fun, it doesn't matter if voting and prizes is flawed" holds absolutely no water. Not only does it ignore other problems along the way (which were perhaps sufficiently swept underneath the rug that they avoided general notice), but the fact remains that as small a part of the experience as it may have been for me, voting, sponsors and prizes were all advertised, are all a part of uDevGames, and should thus be carried out properly, and to the fullest, otherwise they should not have been included in the first place.
The fact that each contestant, whether they made it this far or not, paid $10 supposedly towards the distribution of these prizes is possibly the strongest argument of why this part of the process should be the most well-oiled, put under the most scrutiny, and carried out with the highest degree of precision.
Please, please forget this "close enough is good enough" argument.

There are those who believe that problems should be ignored and should be covered up, so as to provide the best possible view of iDevGames as a whole, to the new people frequenting this site as a result of uDG press.
That strikes me as a highly immoral practice, but that is not the point I wish to go into. You see, my fear is that when we do all play along, and pretend everything is running smoothly and that we are all happy, it becomes very hard to raise these issues later, to demand improvements for next time. It is suddenly quite easy for the people concerned to say things like, "Well, ha ha, last contest everything seemed to work out pretty well. At the end of the day everyone was happy, ha ha." or worse still the deceptively reasonable sounding, "I see where you're coming from, however the contests have worked out well in the past, why not just try it this way again and if there are problems we fix them as they arise?"
The suggestion of feigning contentedness feels like continuing a vicious cycle. And what opinion of iDevGames does it give to those who notice flaws, and yet see a community apparently blissfully ignorant of or content to live with such problems and defects?
Hiding these problems from the "community" is to attempt to hide the problems from yourself, and hope they just disappear. They will not.

I am happy with how this contest has gone for me. I sincerely hope the other entrants are too. There have been problems along the way, which need to be addressed before a future contest is held.
It would be a great shame indeed, however, if the entire contest were to be let down at this point. The saddest part is, that as far as I can tell, the chief problem here is not a lack of resources or help, but a stubbornness, and a belief that tradition should be placed before innovation, and that new ideas and methods should be dismissed, despite what the costs involved may be.

I have stood by and remained quiet, and problems which have arisen have been fixed either by Carlos, or by those with a better social-concience than myself. Now, however, the willingness to acknowledge let alone to fix problems seems to have been lost, and the aid of those others ignored. Colour me disappointed.

Yours,
Mark Thomson

PS: Although I consider it completely irrelevant, it is clear that there are those who disagree, so I shall just state, for the record, that while this is a new account, I have been an active member of this website for about five years now.

kiwiMar Wrote:Secondly, AnotherJake, when DoG refers to the tip of the iceberg, I am sure he is not meaning flaming or any other antagonistic actions, but rather the tip of the percieved incompetence and other factors that finally led the pot to boil over last night as it did, so I'm sure his words cannot be considered threatening.

My position as a moderator is to help keep the peace and extinguish flames. Sometimes that comes at the expense of angering some folks. The situation this morning was a rather roaring flamewar, and DoG made an inflammatory post in that thread. When it was deleted he promptly made this thread with a post along the same lines (albeit a bit nicer). Honestly, that's not what moderators like to see when we're trying to keep things calm, so thus the (temporary) thread lock. My apologies if anyone was offended by my action, but I hope you all can understand that it's not easy making moderation calls when everyones' tempers are pretty hot.

Thanks for that extensive post.
For the record you never have to apologize to me, I've got tough skin because I'm a hard ass.
People also think I'm a lot more emotional than I am, you'd be scared by how
cold and calculating I am when formulating my words.

I owe Seth some apology especially because in my black heart I know he's trying.
I made presumptions of him while knowing someone would prove me wrong.
I just needed to hear it.
I'm also against the drums that beat for this battle of devs, I'd rather see
completed cooperative works that attract new devs in droves by providing tools.

Nothing has been ignored really.
All things have been considered and there are issues with trying the "new thing".
Such as, what if the devs that make the new thing take a balloon to OZ and never
return to fix issues Carlos has no clue how to fix. It has happened before.

The voting system as I've tested for the last two and half hours doesn't seem broken at all.
Sure you get a "thanks for your vote" and you can vote for a game 300,000,000 times.
But after your first, all other votes vanish.
Let the cheaters waste their time trying. Muahahah.
So if your mom forgets she voted for your game and votes again, no harm done.

The biggest 'break' in the system is retaining everyone's confidence, with the stress everyone is under thats not possible to do 100%.

I agree, sweeping things under the rug is not right and its been tried with me a few times with these contests.
It doesn't cut. Knocking over a few apple carts means that someone has to clean
up a mess and while they are at it they will find a few rotten apples to tossed aside.

After all the arguing and fighting and pleasant civil discussion with people I
argued with (for years), I've got more confidence than I did when this all started.

Every forum, group, community even mating pair has heated disagreement, especially when they are stressed.
Even though some us go over the top, it reassures me
that a lot of us are walking around with a well grown set of testicles and aren't
a bunch of easily controlled eunuchs.

Well I don't know what else to say on the subject (hell must have frozen!)
Except that if the site, the people here, and all that brings
were not worth my time, I wouldn't bother carrying my torch and pitchfork to the
doors of Castle Carlos.

It's Alive!

PS: kudos mods if this morning's thread hadn't ended I would have never went to bed.

igame3d Wrote:I owe Seth some apology especially because in my black heart I know he's trying.
I made presumptions of him while knowing someone would prove me wrong.
I just needed to hear it.

Wow. After reading all of the comments you made towards me this morning, I can hardly believe this is actually from the same person.

Apology gladly accepted.

Quote:All things have been considered and there are issues with trying the "new thing". Such as, what if the devs that make the new thing take a balloon to OZ and never return to fix issues Carlos has no clue how to fix. It has happened before.

Back when that happened the first time, I sent Carlos an email offering to help and was turned down. I'm still here and have offered a bunch of times, so that argument doesn't get anywhere with me. Since then, the site has never been anywhere near as useful as it was then, and I believe that is why many people have left.

But after being rejected for the millionth time on something I and others see as being critical, I'm kinda done offering to help.

AnotherJake Wrote:My position as a moderator is to help keep the peace and extinguish flames. Sometimes that comes at the expense of angering some folks. The situation this morning was a rather roaring flamewar, and DoG made an inflammatory post in that thread. When it was deleted he promptly made this thread with a post along the same lines (albeit a bit nicer). Honestly, that's not what moderators like to see when we're trying to keep things calm, so thus the (temporary) thread lock. My apologies if anyone was offended by my action, but I hope you all can understand that it's not easy making moderation calls when everyones' tempers are pretty hot.

I haven't even realized my former response was deleted. I was about to post what I posted to start this thread as a follow up, not a toned down version, when the other thread was locked. The language was harsh, but I felt it necessary. I still do. Maybe some of the sarcasm in that post was shadowed by the few expletives, but I wanted to keep it to the point. Already I have probably written more in the forums alone about this issue, than what is contained in my forum posts over the whole year.

I wrote a very lengthy email to Carlos the night before, detailing just the most critical defects off the voting software, along with a well intentioned rant about how ignoring the problem isn't helping. I was intent on that being my last words on the issue. Seems like the road to hell is paved with good intentions all the way.

What I read, next time I sit down to at the computer, is Carlos proclaiming that the "system is sound". I think WTF? Is this a joke? If this is serious, it is a joke on me. Then I see the forum posts, regurgitating the same thing. The DOW is down 50%, unemployment is rising, but it is proclaimed the economy is sound.

To dust off the seafaring analogies, if you can continue to stay calm and dance to the music while the water is rising around your ankles, kudos to you. But I had to break the glass and push the alarm.

Kudos to kiwiMark for digging through all the details, screaming, and bickering to the core issue:

kiwiMark Wrote:[...] voting, sponsors and prizes were all advertised, are all a part of uDevGames, and should thus be carried out properly, and to the fullest, otherwise they should not have been included in the first place.

I want to do things right, or not do them at all. Certainly now we have to make compromises, but it didn't have to be this way, and even now more can be done than is being done.

DoG Wrote:I haven't even realized my former response was deleted. I was about to post what I posted to start this thread as a follow up, not a toned down version, when the other thread was locked. The language was harsh, but I felt it necessary. I still do.

I understand you want to get your point across as loudly as possible, especially in light of it apparently being ignored by Carlos, and your frustrations are clearly justified, but... as you know, what happens is that one rabble-rousing, rancorous tirade is *always* followed by more. Then we have a flame war, and posts have to be deleted, and threads locked. So I can't agree that a harsh tone was necessary in the first place, but here we are. I dunno, maybe the boat needs to be rocked once in a while, but sheesh, what a mess! Well I hope some good comes out of this, and perhaps some grievances will be properly addressed.

DoG Wrote:I haven't even realized my former response was deleted. I was about to post what I posted to start this thread as a follow up, not a toned down version, when the other thread was locked. The language was harsh, but I felt it necessary. I still do. Maybe some of the sarcasm in that post was shadowed by the few expletives, but I wanted to keep it to the point. Already I have probably written more in the forums alone about this issue, than what is contained in my forum posts over the whole year.

Not really much to say here except what AnotherJake said...

Quote:I wrote a very lengthy email to Carlos the night before, detailing just the most critical defects off the voting software, along with a well intentioned rant about how ignoring the problem isn't helping. I was intent on that being my last words on the issue. Seems like the road to hell is paved with good intentions all the way.

What I read, next time I sit down to at the computer, is Carlos proclaiming that the "system is sound". I think WTF? Is this a joke? If this is serious, it is a joke on me. Then I see the forum posts, regurgitating the same thing. The DOW is down 50%, unemployment is rising, but it is proclaimed the economy is sound.

I might have had something to do with that, but before you pass a verdict, you need to understand that I am coming from the standpoint that:
a) Carlos has put work into this contest
b) I don't know what is involved in the various aspects of setting up the site
c) I haven't seen his emails or log into #idevgames a lot, so I don't know what has been said to him by other people
d) As such, I am in no position to judge and am in a position to be appreciative.

That said, you do have a point.

Quote:To dust off the seafaring analogies, if you can continue to stay calm and dance to the music while the water is rising around your ankles, kudos to you. But I had to break the glass and push the alarm.

Kudos to kiwiMark for digging through all the details, screaming, and bickering to the core issue:

I want to do things right, or not do them at all. Certainly now we have to make compromises, but it didn't have to be this way, and even now more can be done than is being done.